My latest creation, the upside-down Camaro race car, has finally hit the track here at New Jersey Motorsports Park! Check out the video of the much-anticipated unveiling of this top secret project, and see it in action:

The NJMP Mystery Car has been revealed! It's a frightening fusion of a wretched 1990 Ford Festiva and a horrible 1999 Chevy Camaro, with a not-so-subtle twist. The Festiva's tiny (1.3 liter), smoky, worn-out (almost 190k miles) engine has enough trouble moving itself in ordinary traffic. Now, it has been saddled with the entire inverted body of the much larger car, including the original Camaro wheels. Putting this thing on a race course with real race cars would be tantamount to suicide, were it not for the stringent safety rules. Now, it's merely extremely hazardous, and highly ill-advised. The reactions have been every bit what we expected: bewildered looks, broad grins, and plenty of laughter. The track's tow guy passed our car in the pits, stopped, backed up, snapped a pic with his phone, and said "That's gonna cause some confusion on the track!"

People constantly ask me what drug or alcohol-fueled altered states of consciousness induce these terrible LeMons builds. I wish could offer such a rational explanation. I don't know where they come from, but they are never in short supply. I'm an 8 year-old kid trapped in a 40 year-old body, with just enough talent to pull off my wacky ideas, and, fortunately, enough truly amazing friends to help make them a reality. People are already asking what's next. I have a yard full of potential LeMons cars, and a head full of bad ideas. I guess I'll have to pick one, and get started...

MotorPunk Magazine in the U.K. has done a fantastic feature on The 24 Hours of LeMons for their August issue. They contacted me months ago for info on the plane, and now the issue is in print and online. Apparently, the most prominent of all the "mentals" in LeMons is yours truly, despite being "an ordinary looking chap, a policeman, a Sunday school teacher and all round good guy." Check it out!

A mere two hours from Speedycop World Headquarters (fancy title for my driveway and back yard) in Brandywine, MD, lies one of the most fun and challenging tracks in the United States---the Shenandoah Circuit of Summit Point Motorsports Park, located near Charles Town, WV. We consider this our home track, even though we only go there once a year, for the 24 Hours of LeMons "Capitol Offense" race. This year I built a new "laps" race car for this event, a 1994 Lexus SC400. With a 250HP 4.0 liter 32 valve V8, rear while drive, sleek lines, and an independent rear suspension, it's the polar opposite of my usual wacky LeMons builds. I scored it on Craigslist for $450 with a bad trans and 200k miles, but I already had a low mileage transmission from a '90 Lexus LS400 with only 90k (wrecked in the front) that I had parted out. It's a direct swap, except for the output flange, which is easily swapped. I had the always awesome Jim Whitley of www.RollCageComponents.com bend a cage, and once I welded it all in, DC Doug painted it for me. The car looked sharp, and after cutting the stock springs 2", it sat low and mean!

In typical Speedycop fashion, it wasn't quite ready when we arrived at the track Friday afternoon, so Anton Lovett and Mike Taylor (the two guys racing it with me) stepped up and busted their butts to get all the little pesky details (seat/harness/cage padding/etc.) finished. It wasn't easy, but we finished just in time to take the green flag on Saturday. It had the typical new race car teething issues (overheating due to improper bleeding, dry/cracked rubber transmission line sprang a leak, brake order messed up so rear racing pads weren't available). We made it the whole day Saturday on one set of premium rear street pads, and replaced them with another on Sunday, which lasted barely more than two hours before they went metal to metal, ending our day early. Still, the car managed to go 1:48 in its debut, and the fastest lap of the race was a 1:47, so it's gonna be a real contender for that elusive overall win once we get the dead weight out, and better rear pads.

Every year at Summit Point we bring a charity fundraiser car (2001 Mercury Cougar with a V6/auto), to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project. Veterans who have never raced before race for free, and anyone else can race for 20 minutes with a donation of $100 or more. I had robbed it of the seat and harness late last year, so Joe and Joey Dorshefski and Jason Wells got it all prepped and ready, even fixing a slow ATF leak. Thanks to teammate Fritz Dahlin and the generous folks at B/A Products (makers of the finest towing and auto transport supplies in the business: www.baprod.com ), we were given $500 as an operating budget to run the car this year, which is a cost we normally out-of-pocket, so that 100% of the donations can go to the WWP. We loan each new driver all the necessary gear (donated by Pyrotect), and give each one a private briefing on racing rules and safety. LeMons waives the entry fee for the Cougar, and even solicits donation from errant drivers in the penalty box. Over the last three years, we've raised more than $10,000 for this worthy cause! This year we encountered a few rather serious issues, with confused novice drivers entering and exiting the track in places they were not supposed to, driving very unpredictably, and generally creating mayhem, so the plug was pulled on Sunday for any additional novice drivers. As we are not in the business of providing seat time for experienced racers at our own expense, we'll stick to more conventional methods for our WWP fundraising in the future.

Teammates Fritz, Phil, Mat, Jake, and Tim spent most of the weekend swapping out the 4 cylinder engine of their front wheel drive Toyota Celica---TWICE! Finally, with engine #3 on Sunday, it all came together for them. The last 30 minutes of the race found Jake and I nose to tail, with him piloting the Celica, and me in the Cougar. He was driving really well, and the Cougar is overweight (still has working AC, dash, airbags, etc.), so no matter what I tried, I couldn't get around him. I would catch him in the turns, creep up to within several inches (literally) of his bumper, and lay on the horn, hoping to rattle him and make him yield. No such luck. He told me later he was laughing every time. We stayed nose to tail the entire time, driving at 10/10ths, and it was an absolute blast! Most fun I've had in a race since the Cessna debuted. The Joes had some issues with their 1960 Falcon, finally resorting to a huge to aluminum radiator to cure their overheating woes. The new sway bars were working---that thing FLEW through the corners! I strapped in to take it out for 5 laps and try it out, but nothing happened when I pushed the starter button. The same problem as last year had reoccurred---the starter, put on securely with lockwashers, had fallen off! Racin' Rob and his crew were leading Class C at one point in his 4 cylinder Mustang, but a radiator leak dropped them to second in class by the time the checkered waved.

Thanks again to all those who helped make our race weekend and our fundraising efforts a huge success!

A mere two hours from Speedycop World Headquarters (fancy title for my driveway and back yard) in Brandywine, MD, lies one of the most fun and challenging tracks in the United States---the Shenandoah Circuit of Summit Point Motorsports Park, located near Charles Town, WV. We consider this our home track, even though we only go there once a year, for the 24 Hours of LeMons "Capitol Offense" race. This year I built a new "laps" race car for this event, a 1994 Lexus SC400. With a 250HP 4.0 liter 32 valve V8, rear while drive, sleek lines, and an independent rear suspension, it's the polar opposite of my usual wacky LeMons builds. I scored it on Craigslist for $450 with a bad trans and 200k miles, but I already had a low mileage transmission from a '90 Lexus LS400 with only 90k (wrecked in the front) that I had parted out. It's a direct swap, except for the output flange, which is easily swapped. I had the always awesome Jim Whitley of www.RollCageComponents.com bend a cage, and once I welded it all in, DC Doug painted it for me. The car looked sharp, and after cutting the stock springs 2", it sat low and mean!